LEX NON SCRIPTA
Selwyn had gone to New York with Gerald, "for a few days," as he
expressed it; but it was now the first week in October, and he had not
yet returned to Silverside.
A brief note to Nina thanking her for having had him at Silverside, and
speaking vaguely of some business matters which might detain him
indefinitely--a briefer note to Eileen regretting his inability to
return for the present--were all the communication they had from him
except news brought by Austin, who came down from town every Friday.
A long letter to him from Nina still remained unanswered; Austin had
seen him only once in town; Lansing, now back in New York, wrote a
postscript in a letter to Drina, asking for Selwyn's new address--the
first intimation anybody had that he had given up his lodgings on
Lexington Avenue.
"I was perfectly astonished to find he had gone, leaving no address,"
wrote Boots; "and nobody knows anything about him at his clubs. I have
an idea that he may have gone to Washington to see about the Chaosite
affair; but if you have any address except his clubs, please send it to
me."
Eileen had not written him; his sudden leave-taking nearly a month ago
had so astounded her that she could not believe he meant to be gone
more than a day or two. Then came his note, written at the Patroons'
Club--very brief, curiously stilted and formal, with a strange tone of
finality through it, as though he were taking perfunctory leave of
people who had come temporarily into his life, and as though the chances
were agreeably even of his ever seeing them again.
The girl was not hurt, as yet; she remained merely confused,
incredulous, unreconciled. That there was to be some further explanation
of his silence she never dreamed of doubting; and there seemed to be
nothing to do in the interval but await it. As for writing him, some
instinct forbade it, even when Nina suggested that she write, adding
laughingly that nothing else seemed likely to stir her brother.
For the first few days the children clamoured intermittently for him;
but children forget, and Billy continued to cast out his pack in undying
hope of a fox or bunny, and the younger children brought their
butterfly-nets and sand-shovels to Austin and Nina for repairs; and
Drina, when Boots deserted her for his Air Line Company, struck up a
wholesome and lively friendship with a dozen subfreshmen and the younger
Orchil girls, and began to play golf like a little fiend.
It was possible, now, to ride cross-country; and Nina, who was always in
terror of an added ounce to her perfect figure, rode every day with
Eileen; and Austin, on a big hunter, joined them two days in the week.
There were dances, too, and Nina went to some of them. So did Eileen,
who had created a furor among the younger brothers and undergraduates;
and the girl was busy enough with sailing and motoring and dashing
through the Sound in all sorts of power boats.
Once, under Austin's and young Craig's supervision, she tried
shore-bird shooting; but the first broken wing from the gun on her left
settled the thing for ever for her, and the horror of the
blood-sprinkled, kicking mass of feathers haunted her dreams for a week.
Youths, however, continued to hover numerously about her. They sat in
soulful rows upon the veranda at Silverside; they played guitars at her
in canoes, accompanying the stringy thrumming with the peculiarly
exasperating vocal noises made only by very young undergraduates; they
rode with her and Nina; they pervaded her vicinity with a tireless
constancy amounting to obsession.
She liked it well enough; she was as interested in everything as usual;
as active at the nets, playing superbly, and with all her heart in the
game--while it lasted; she swung her slim brassy with all the old-time
fire and satisfaction in the clean, sharp whack, as the ball flew
through the sunshine, rising beautifully in a long, low trajectory
against the velvet fair-green.
It was unalloyed happiness for her to sit her saddle, feeling under her
the grand stride of her powerful hunter on a headlong cross-country
gallop; it was purest pleasure for her to lean forward in her oilskins,
her eyes almost blinded with salt spray, while the low motor-boat rushed
on and on through cataracts of foam, and the heaving, green sea-miles
fled away, away, in the hissing furrow of the wake.
Truly, for her, the world was still green, the sun bright, the high sky
blue; but she had not forgotten that the earth had been greener, the sun
brighter, the azure above her more splendid--once upon a time--like the
first phrase of a tale that is told. And if she were at times listless,
absent-eyed, subdued--a trifle graver, or unusually silent, seeking the
still paths of the garden as though in need of youthful meditation and
the quiet of the sunset hour, she never doubted that that tale would be
retold for her again. Only--alas!--the fair days were passing, and the
russet rustle of October sounded already among the curling leaves in the
garden; and he had been away a long time--a very long time. And she
could not understand.
On one of Austin's week-end visits, the hour for conjugal confab having
arrived and husband and wife locked in the seclusion of their
bedroom--being old-fashioned enough to occupy the same--he said, with a
trace of irritation in his voice:
"I don't know where Phil is, or what he's about. I'm wondering--he's got
the Selwyn conscience, you know--what he's up to--and if it's any kind
of dam-foolishness. Haven't you heard a word from him, Nina?"
Nina, in her pretty night attire, had emerged from her dressing-room,
locked out Kit-Ki and her maid, and had curled up in a big, soft
armchair, cradling her bare ankles in her hand.
"I haven't heard from him," she said. "Rosamund saw him in
Washington--passed him on the street. He was looking horridly thin and
worn, she wrote. He did not see her."
"Now what in the name of common sense is he doing in Washington!"
exclaimed Austin wrathfully. "Probably breaking his heart because nobody
cares to examine his Chaosite. I told him, as long as he insisted on
bothering the Government with it instead of making a deal with the Lawn
people, that I'd furnish him with a key to the lobby. I told him I knew
the right people, could get him the right lawyers, and start the thing
properly. Why didn't he come to me about it? There's only one way to
push such things, and he's as ignorant of it as a boatswain in the
marine cavalry."
Nina said thoughtfully: "You always were impatient of people, dear.
Perhaps Phil may get them to try his Chaosite without any wire-pulling.
. . . I do wish he'd write. I can't understand his continued silence.
Hasn't Boots heard from him? Hasn't Gerald?"
"Not a word. And by the way, Nina, Gerald has done rather an unexpected
thing. I saw him last night; he came to the house and told me that he
had just severed his connection with Julius Neergard's company."
"I'm glad of it!" exclaimed Nina; "I'm glad he showed the good sense to
do it!"
"Well--yes. As a matter of fact, Neergard is going to be a very rich man
some day; and Gerald might have--But I am not displeased. What appeals
to me is the spectacle of the boy acting with conviction on his own
initiative. Whether or not he is making a mistake has nothing to do with
the main thing, and that is that Gerald, for the first time in his
rather colourless career, seems to have developed the rudiments of a
backbone out of the tail which I saw so frequently either flourishing
defiance at me or tucked sullenly between his hind legs. I had quite a
talk with him last night; he behaved very decently, and with a certain
modesty which may, one day, develop into something approaching dignity.
We spoke of his own affairs--in which, for the first time, he appeared
to take an intelligent interest. Besides that, he seemed willing enough
to ask my judgment in several matters--a radical departure from his cub
days."
"What are you going to do for him, dear?" asked his wife, rather
bewildered at the unexpected news. "Of course he must go into some sort
of business again--"
"Certainly. And, to my astonishment, he actually came and solicited my
advice. I--I was so amazed, Nina, that I could scarcely credit my own
senses. I managed to say that I'd think it over. Of course he can, if he
chooses, begin everything again and come in with me. Or--if I am
satisfied that he has any ability--he can set up some sort of a
real-estate office on his own hook. I could throw a certain amount of
business in his way--but it's all in the air, yet. I'll see him Monday,
and we'll have another talk. By gad! Nina," he added, with a flush of
half-shy satisfaction on his ruddy face, "it's--it's almost like having
a grown-up son coming bothering me with his affairs; ah--rather
agreeable than otherwise. There's certainly something in that boy.
I--perhaps I have been, at moments, a trifle impatient. But I did not
mean to be. You know that, dear, don't you?"
His wife looked up at her big husband in quiet amusement. "Oh, yes! I
know a little about you," she said, "and a little about Gerald, too. He
is only a masculine edition of Eileen--the irresponsible freedom of life
brought out all his faults at once, like a horrid rash; it's due to the
masculine notion of masculine education. His sister's education was
essentially the contrary: humours were eradicated before first symptoms
became manifest. The moral, mental, and physical drilling and schooling
was undertaken and accepted without the slightest hope--and later
without the slightest desire--for any relaxation of the rigour when she
became of age and mistress of herself. That's the difference: a boy
looks forward to the moment when he can flourish his heels and wag his
ears and bray; a girl has no such prospect. Gerald has brayed; Eileen
never will flourish her heels unless she becomes fashionable after
marriage--which isn't very likely--"
Nina hesitated, another idea intruding.
"By the way, Austin; the Orchil boy--the one in Harvard--proposed to
Eileen--the little idiot! She told me--thank goodness! she still does
tell me things. Also the younger and chubbier Draymore youth has offered
himself--after a killingly proper interview with me. I thought it might
amuse you to hear of it."
"It might amuse me more if Eileen would get busy and bring Philip into
camp," observed her husband. "And why the devil they don't make up their
minds to it is beyond me. That brother of yours is the limit sometimes.
I'm fond of him--you know it--but he certainly can be the limit
sometimes."
"Do you know," said Nina, "that I believe he is in love with her?"
"Then, why doesn't--"
"I don't know. I was sure--I am sure now--that the girl cares more for
him than for anybody. And yet--and yet I don't believe she is actually
in love with him. Several times I supposed she was--or near it, anyway.
. . . But they are a curious pair, Austin--so quaint about it; so slow
and old-fashioned. . . . And the child is the most innocent being--in
some ways. . . . Which is all right unless she becomes one of those
pokey, earnest, knowledge-absorbing young things with the very germ of
vitality dried up and withered in her before she awakens. . . . I don't
know--I really don't. For a girl _must_ have something of the human
about her to attract a man, and be attracted. . . . Not that she need
know anything about love--or even suspect it. But there must be some
response in her, some--some--"
"Deviltry?" suggested Austin.
His pretty wife laughed and dropped one knee over the other, leaning
back to watch him finish his good-night cigarette. After a moment her
face grew grave, and she bent forward.
"Speaking of Rosamund a moment ago reminds me of something else she
wrote--it's about Alixe. Have you heard anything?"
"Not a word," said Austin, with a frank scowl, "and don't want to."
"It's only this--that Alixe is ill. Nobody seems to know what the matter
is; nobody has seen her. But she's at Clifton, with a couple of nurses,
and Rosamund heard rumours that she is very ill indeed. . . . People go
to Clifton for shattered nerves, you know."
"Yes; for bridge-fidgets, neurosis, pip, and the various jumps that
originate in the simpler social circles. What's the particular matter
with her? Too many cocktails? Or a dearth of grand slams?"
"You are brutal, Austin. Besides, I don't know. She's had a perfectly
dreary life with her husband. . . . I--I can't forget how fond I was of
her in spite of what she did to Phil. . . . Besides, I'm beginning to be
certain that it was not entirely her fault."
"What? Do you think Phil--"
"No, no, no! Don't be an utter idiot. All I mean to say is that Alixe
was always nervous and high-strung; odd at times; eccentric--_more_ than
merely eccentric--"
"You mean dippy?"
"Oh, Austin, you're horrid. I mean that there is mental trouble in that
family. You have heard of it as well as I; you know her father died of
it--"
"The usual defence in criminal cases," observed Austin, flicking his
cigarette-end into the grate. "I'm sorry, dear, that Alixe has the
jumps; hope she'll get over 'em. But as for pretending I've any use for
her, I can't and don't and won't. She spoiled life for the best man I
know; she kicked his reputation into a cocked hat, and he, with his
chivalrous Selwyn conscience, let her do it. I did like her once; I
don't like her now, and that's natural and it winds up the matter. Dear
friend, shall we, perhaps, to bed presently our way wend--yess?"
"Yes, dear; but you are not very charitable about Alixe. And I tell
you I've my own ideas about her illness--especially as she is at
Clifton. . . . I wonder where her little beast of a husband is?"
But Austin only yawned and looked at the toes of his slippers, and then
longingly at the pillows.
* * * * *
Had Nina known it, the husband of Mrs. Ruthven, whom she had
characterised so vividly, was at that very moment seated in a private
card-room at the Stuyvesant Club with Sanxon Orchil, George Fane, and
Bradley Harmon; and the game had been bridge, as usual, and had gone
very heavily against him.
Several things had gone against Mr. Ruthven recently; for one thing, he
was beginning to realise that he had made a vast mistake in mixing
himself up in any transactions with Neergard.
When he, at Neergard's cynical suggestion, had consented to exploit his
own club--the Siowitha--and had consented to resign from it to do so, he
had every reason to believe that Neergard meant to either mulct them
heavily or buy them out. In either case, having been useful to Neergard,
his profits from the transaction would have been considerable.
But, even while he was absorbed in figuring them up--and he needed the
money, as usual--Neergard coolly informed him of his election to the
club, and Ruthven, thunder-struck, began to perceive the depth of the
underground mole tunnels which Neergard had dug to undermine and capture
the stronghold which had now surrendered to him.
Rage made him ill for a week; but there was nothing to do about it. He
had been treacherous to his club and to his own caste, and Neergard knew
it--and knew perfectly well that Ruthven dared not protest--dared not
even whimper.
Then Neergard began to use Ruthven when he needed him; and he began to
permit himself to win at cards in Ruthven's house--a thing he had not
dared to do before. He also permitted himself more ease and freedom in
that house--a sort of intimacy _sans façon_--even a certain jocularity.
He also gave himself the privilege of inviting the Ruthvens on board the
_Niobrara_; and Ruthven went, furious at being forced to stamp with his
open approval an episode which made Neergard a social probability.
How it happened that Rosamund divined something of the situation is not
quite clear; but she always had a delicate nose for anything not
intended for her, and the thing amused her immensely, particularly
because what viciousness had been so long suppressed in Neergard was now
tentatively making itself apparent in his leering ease among women he so
recently feared.
This, also, was gall and wormwood to Ruthven, so long the official
lap-dog of the very small set he kennelled with; and the women of that
set were perverse enough to find Neergard amusing, and his fertility in
contriving new extravagances for them interested these people, whose
only interest had always been centred in themselves.
Meanwhile, Neergard had almost finished with Gerald--he had only one
further use for him; and as his social success became more pronounced
with the people he had crowded in among, he became bolder and more
insolent, no longer at pains to mole-tunnel toward the object desired,
no longer overcareful about his mask. And one day he asked the boy very
plainly why he had never invited him to meet his sister. And he got an
answer that he never forgot.
And all the while Ruthven squirmed under the light but steadily
inflexible pressure of the curb which Neergard had slipped on him so
deftly; he had viewed with indifference Gerald's boyish devotion to his
wife, which was even too open and naïve to be of interest to those who
witnessed it. But he had not counted on Neergard's sudden hatred of
Gerald; and the first token of that hatred fell upon the boy like a
thunderbolt when Neergard whispered to Ruthven, one night at the
Stuyvesant Club, and Ruthven, exasperated, had gone straight home, to
find his wife in tears, and the boy clumsily attempting to comfort her,
both her hands in his.
"Perhaps," said Ruthven coldly, "you have some plausible explanation for
this sort of thing. If you haven't, you'd better trump up one together,
and I'll send you my attorney to hear it. In that event," he added,
"you'd better leave your joint address when you find a more convenient
house than mine."
As a matter of fact, he had really meant nothing more than the threat
and the insult, the situation permitting him a heavier hold upon his
wife and a new grip on Gerald in case he ever needed him; but threat and
insult were very real to the boy, and he knocked Mr. Ruthven flat on his
back--the one thing required to change that gentleman's pretence to
deadly earnest.
Ruthven scrambled to his feet; Gerald did it again; and, after that, Mr.
Ruthven prudently remained prone during the delivery of a terse but
concise opinion of him expressed by Gerald.
After Gerald had gone, Ruthven opened first one eye, then the other,
then his mouth, and finally sat up; and his wife, who had been curiously
observing him, smiled.
"It is strange," she said serenely, "that I never thought of that
method. I wonder why I never thought of it," lazily stretching her firm
young arms and glancing casually at their symmetry and smooth-skinned
strength. "Go into your own quarters," she added, as he rose, shaking
with fury: "I've endured the last brutality I shall ever suffer from
you."
She dropped her folded hands into her lap, gazing coolly at him; but
there was a glitter in her eyes which arrested his first step toward
her.
"I think," she said, "that you mean my ruin. Well, we began it long ago,
and I doubt if I have anything of infamy to learn, thanks to my thorough
schooling as your wife. . . . But knowledge is not necessarily practice,
and it happens that I have not cared to commit the particular
indiscretion so fashionable among the friends you have surrounded me
with. I merely mention this for your information, not because I am
particularly proud of it. It is not anything to be proud of, in my
case--it merely happened so; a matter, perhaps of personal taste,
perhaps because of lack of opportunity; and there is a remote
possibility that belated loyalty to a friend I once betrayed may have
kept me personally chaste in this rotting circus circle you have driven
me around in, harnessed to your vicious caprice, dragging the weight of
your corruption--"
She laughed. "I had no idea that I could be so eloquent, Jack. But my
mind has become curiously clear during the last year--strangely and
unusually limpid and precise. Why, my poor friend, every plot of yours
and of your friends--every underhand attempt to discredit and injure me
has been perfectly apparent to me. You supposed that my headaches, my
outbursts of anger, my wretched nights, passed in tears--and the long,
long days spent kneeling in the ashes of dead memories--all these you
supposed had weakened--perhaps unsettled--my mind. . . . You lie if you
deny it, for you have had doctors watching me for months. . . . You
didn't know I was aware of it, did you? But I was, and I am. . . . And
you told them that my father died of--of brain trouble, you coward!"
Still he stood there, jaw loose, gazing at her as though fascinated; and
she smiled and settled deeper in her chair, framing the gilded
foliations of the back with her beautiful arms.
"We might as well understand one another now," she said languidly. "If
you mean to get rid of me, there is no use in attempting to couple my
name with that of any man; first, because it is untrue, and you not only
know it, but you know you can't prove it. There remains the cowardly
method you have been nerving yourself to attempt, never dreaming that I
was aware of your purpose."
A soft, triumphant little laugh escaped her. There was something almost
childish in her delight at outwitting him, and, very slowly, into his
worn and faded eyes a new expression began to dawn--the flickering stare
of suspicion. And in it the purely personal impression of rage and
necessity of vengeance subsided; he eyed her intently, curiously, and
with a cool persistence which finally began to irritate her.
"What a credulous fool you are," she said, "to build your hopes of a
separation on any possible mental disability of mine."
He stood a moment without answering, then quietly seated himself. The
suspicious glimmer in his faded eyes had become the concentration of a
curiosity almost apprehensive.
"Go on," he said; "what else?"
"What do you mean?"
"You have been saying several things--about doctors whom I have set to
watch you--for a year or more."
"Do you deny it?" she retorted angrily.
"No--no, I do not deny anything. But--who are these doctors--whom you
have noticed?"
"I don't know who they are," she replied impatiently. "I've seen them
often enough--following me on the street, or in public places--watching
me. They are everywhere--you have them well paid, evidently; I suppose
you can afford it. But you are wasting your time."
"You think so?"
"Yes!" she cried in a sudden violence that startled him, "you are
wasting your time! And so am I--talking to you--enduring your personal
affronts and brutal sneers. Sufficient for you that I know my enemies,
and that I am saner, thank God, than any of them!" She flashed a look of
sudden fury at him, and rose from her chair. He also rose with a
promptness that bordered on precipitation.
"For the remainder of the spring and summer," she said, "I shall make my
plans regardless of you. I shall not go to Newport; you are at liberty
to use the house there as you choose. And as for this incident with
Gerald, you had better not pursue it any further. Do you understand?"
He nodded, dropping his hands into his coat-pockets.
"Now you may go," she said coolly.
He went--not, however, to his room, but straight to the house of the
fashionable physician who ministered to wealth with an unction and
success that had permitted him, in summer time, to occupy his own villa
at Newport and dispense further ministrations when requested.
* * * * *
On the night of the conjugal conference between Nina Gerard and her
husband--and almost at the same hour--Jack Ruthven, hard hit in the
card-room of the Stuyvesant Club, sat huddled over the table, figuring
up what sort of checks he was to draw to the credit of George Fane and
Sanxon Orchil.
Matters had been going steadily against him for some time--almost
everything, in fact, except the opinions of several physicians in a
matter concerning his wife. For, in that scene between them in early
spring, his wife had put that into his head which had never before been
there--suspicion of her mental soundness.
And now, as he sat there, pencil in hand, adding up the score-cards, he
remembered that he was to interview his attorney that evening at his own
house--a late appointment, but necessary to insure the presence of one
or two physicians at a consultation to definitely decide what course of
action might be taken.
He had not laid eyes on his wife that summer, but for the first time he
had really had her watched during her absence. What she lived on--how
she managed--he had not the least idea, and less concern. All he knew
was that he had contributed nothing, and he was quite certain that her
balance at her own bank had been nonexistent for months.
But any possible additional grounds for putting her away from him that
might arise in a question as to her sources of support no longer
interested him. That line of attack was unnecessary; besides, he had no
suspicion concerning her personal chastity. But Alixe, that evening in
early spring, had unwittingly suggested to him the use of a weapon the
existence of which he had never dreamed of. And he no longer entertained
any doubts of its efficiency as a means of finally ridding him of a wife
whom he had never been able to fully subdue or wholly corrupt, and who,
as a mate for him in his schemes for the pecuniary maintenance of his
household, had proven useless and almost ruinous.
He had not seen her during the summer. In the autumn he had heard of her
conduct at Hitherwood House. And, a week later, to his astonishment, he
learned of her serious illness, and that she had been taken to Clifton.
It was the only satisfactory news he had had of her in months.
So now he sat there at the bridge-table in the private card-room of the
Stuyvesant Club, deftly adding up the score that had gone against him,
but consoled somewhat at the remembrance of his appointment, and of the
probability of an early release from the woman who had been to him only
a source of social mistakes, domestic unhappiness, and financial
disappointment.
When he had finished his figuring he fished out a check-book, detached a
tiny gold fountain-pen from the bunch of seals and knick-knacks on his
watch-chain, and, filling in the checks, passed them over without
comment.
Fane rose, stretching his long neck, gazed about through his spectacles,
like a benevolent saurian, and finally fixed his mild, protruding eyes
upon Orchil.
"There'll be a small game at the Fountain Club," he said, with a grin
which creased his cheeks until his retreating chin almost disappeared
under the thick lower lip.
Orchil twiddled his long, crinkly, pointed moustache and glanced
interrogatively at Harmon; then he yawned, stretched his arms, and rose,
pocketing the check, which Ruthven passed to him, with a careless nod of
thanks.
As they filed out of the card-room into the dim passageway, Orchil
leading, a tall, shadowy figure in evening dress stepped back from the
door of the card-room against the wall to give them right of way, and
Orchil, peering at him without recognition in the dull light, bowed
suavely as he passed, as did Fane, craning his curved neck, and Harmon
also, who followed in his wake.
But when Ruthven came abreast of the figure in the passage and bowed his
way past, a low voice from the courteous unknown, pronouncing his name,
halted him short.
"I want a word with you, Mr. Ruthven," added Selwyn; "that card-room
will suit me, if you please."
But Ruthven, recovering from the shock of Selwyn's voice, started to
pass him without a word.
"I said that I wanted to speak to you!" repeated Selwyn.
Ruthven, deigning no reply, attempted to shove by him; and Selwyn,
placing one hand flat against the other's shoulder, pushed him violently
back into the card-room he had just left, and, stepping in behind him,
closed and locked the door.
"W-what the devil do you mean!" gasped Ruthven, his hard, minutely
shaven face turning a deep red.
"What I say," replied Selwyn; "that I want a word or two with you."
He stood still for a moment, in the centre of the little room, tall,
gaunt of feature, and very pale. The close, smoky atmosphere of the
place evidently annoyed him; he glanced about at the scattered cards,
the empty oval bottles in their silver stands, the half-burned remains
of cigars on the green-topped table. Then he stepped over and opened the
only window.
"Sit down," he said, turning on Ruthven; and he seated himself and
crossed one leg over the other. Ruthven remained standing.
"This--this thing," began Ruthven in a voice made husky and indistinct
through fury, "this ruffianly behaviour amounts to assault."
"As you choose," nodded Selwyn, almost listlessly, "but be quiet; I've
something to think of besides your convenience."
For a few moments he sat silent, thoughtful, narrowing eyes considering
the patterns on the rug at his feet; and Ruthven, weak with rage and
apprehension, was forced to stand there awaiting the pleasure of a man
of whom he had suddenly become horribly afraid.
And at last Selwyn, emerging from his pallid reverie, straightened out,
shaking his broad shoulders as though to free him of that black spectre
perching there.
"Ruthven," he said, "a few years ago you persuaded my wife to leave me;
and I have never punished you. There were two reasons why I did not: the
first was because I did not wish to punish her, and any blow at you
would have reached her heavily. The second reason, subordinate to the
first, is obvious: decent men, in these days, have tacitly agreed to
suspend a violent appeal to the unwritten law as a concession to
civilisation. This second reason, however, depends entirely upon the
first, as you see."
He leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, and recrossed his legs.
"I did not ask you into this room," he said, with a slight smile, "to
complain of the wrong you have committed against me, or to retail to you
the consequences of your act as they may or may not have affected me and
my career; I have--ah--invited you here to explain to you the present
condition of your own domestic affairs"--he looked at Ruthven full in
the face--"to explain them to you, and to lay down for you the course of
conduct which you are to follow."
"By God!--" began Ruthven, stepping back, one hand reaching for the
door-knob; but Selwyn's voice rang out clean and sharp:
"Sit down!"
And, as Ruthven glared at him out of his little eyes:
"You'd better sit down, I think," said Selwyn softly.
Ruthven turned, took two unsteady steps forward, and laid his heavily
ringed hand on the back of a chair. Selwyn smiled, and Ruthven sat down.
"Now," continued Selwyn, "for certain rules of conduct to govern you
during the remainder of your wife's lifetime. . . . And your wife is
ill, Mr. Ruthven--sick of a sickness which may last for a great many
years, or may be terminated in as many days. Did you know it?"
Ruthven snarled.
"Yes, of course you knew it, or you suspected it. Your wife is in a
sanitarium, as you have discovered. She is mentally ill--rational at
times--violent at moments, and for long periods quite docile, gentle,
harmless--content to be talked to, read to, advised, persuaded. But
during the last week a change of a certain nature has occurred
which--which, I am told by competent physicians, not only renders her
case beyond all hope of ultimate recovery, but threatens an earlier
termination than was at first looked for. It is this: your wife has
become like a child again--occupied contentedly and quite happily with
childish things. She has forgotten much; her memory is quite gone. How
much she does remember it is impossible to say."
His head fell; his brooding eyes were fixed again on the rug at his
feet. After a while he looked up.
"It is pitiful, Mr. Ruthven--she is so young--with all her physical
charm and attraction quite unimpaired. But the mind is gone--quite gone,
sir. Some sudden strain--and the tension has been great for years--some
abrupt overdraft upon her mental resource, perhaps; God knows how it
came--from sorrow, from some unkindness too long endured--"
Again he relapsed into his study of the rug; and slowly, warily, Ruthven
lifted his little, inflamed eyes to look at him, then moistened his dry
lips with a thick-coated tongue, and stole a glance at the locked door.
"I understand," said Selwyn, looking up suddenly, "that you are
contemplating proceedings against your wife. Are you?"
Ruthven made no reply.
"_Are_ you?" repeated Selwyn. His face had altered; a dim glimmer played
in his eyes like the reflection of heat lightning at dusk.
"Yes, I am," said Ruthven.
"On the grounds of her mental incapacity?"
"Yes."
"Then, as I understand it, the woman whom you persuaded to break every
law, human and divine, for your sake, you now propose to abandon. Is
that it?"
Ruthven made no reply.
"You propose to publish her pitiable plight to the world by beginning
proceedings; you intend to notify the public of your wife's infirmity by
divorcing her."
"Sane or insane," burst out Ruthven, "she was riding for a fall--and
she's going to get it! What the devil are you talking about? I'm not
accountable to you. I'll do what I please; I'll manage my own affairs--"
"No," said Selwyn, "I'll manage this particular affair. And now I'll
tell you how I'm going to do it. I have in my lodgings--or rather in the
small hall bedroom which I now occupy--an army service revolver, in
fairly good condition. The cylinder was a little stiff this morning when
I looked at it, but I've oiled it with No. 27--an excellent rust solvent
and lubricant, Mr. Ruthven--and now the cylinder spins around in a
manner perfectly trustworthy. So, as I was saying, I have this very
excellent and serviceable weapon, and shall give myself the pleasure of
using it on you if you ever commence any such action for divorce or
separation against your wife. This is final."
Ruthven stared at him as though hypnotised.
"Don't mistake me," added Selwyn, a trifle wearily. "I am not compelling
you to decency for the purpose of punishing _you_; men never trouble
themselves to punish vermin--they simply exterminate them, or they
retreat and avoid them. I merely mean that you shall never again bring
publicity and shame upon your wife--even though now, mercifully enough,
she has not the faintest idea that you are what a complacent law calls
her husband."
A slow blaze lighted up his eyes, and he got up from his chair.
"You decadent little beast!" he said slowly, "do you suppose that the
dirty accident of your intrusion into an honest man's life could
dissolve the divine compact of wedlock? Soil it--yes; besmirch it,
render it superficially unclean, unfit, nauseous--yes. But neither you
nor your vile code nor the imbecile law you invoked to legalise the
situation really ever deprived me of my irrevocable status and
responsibility. . . . I--even I--was once--for a while--persuaded that
it did; that the laws of the land could do this--could free me from a
faithless wife, and regularise her position in your household. The laws
of the land say so, and I--I said so at last--persuaded because I
desired to be persuaded. . . . It was a lie. My wife, shamed or
unshamed, humbled or unhumbled, true to her marriage vows or false to
them, now legally the wife of another, has never ceased to be my wife.
And it is a higher law that corroborates me--higher than you can
understand--a law unwritten because axiomatic; a law governing the very
foundation of the social fabric, and on which that fabric is absolutely
dependent for its existence intact. But"--with a contemptuous
shrug--"you won't understand; all you can understand is the
gratification of your senses and the fear of something interfering with
that gratification--like death, for instance. Therefore I am satisfied
that you understand enough of what I said to discontinue any legal
proceedings which would tend to discredit, expose, or cast odium on a
young wife very sorely stricken--very, very ill--whom God, in his mercy,
has blinded to the infamy where you have dragged her--under the law of
the land."
He turned on his heel, paced the little room once or twice, then swung
round again:
"Keep your filthy money--wrung from women and boys over card-tables.
Even if some blind, wormlike process of instinct stirred the shame in
you, and you ventured to offer belated aid to the woman who bears your
name, I forbid it--I do not permit you the privilege. Except that she
retains your name--and the moment you attempt to rob her of that I shall
destroy you!--except for that, you have no further relations with
her--nothing to do or undo; no voice as to the disposal of what remains
of her; no power, no will, no influence in her fate. _I_ supplant you; I
take my own again; I reassume a responsibility temporarily taken from
me. And _now_, I think, you understand!"
He gave him one level and deadly stare; then his pallid features
relaxed, he slowly walked past Ruthven, grave, preoccupied; unlocked the
door, and passed out.
* * * * *
His lodgings were not imposing in their furnishings or dimensions--a
very small bedroom in the neighbourhood of Sixth Avenue and Washington
Square--but the heavy and increasing drain on his resources permitted
nothing better now; and what with settling Gerald's complications and
providing two nurses and a private suite at Clifton for Alixe Ruthven,
he had been obliged to sell a number of securities, which reduced his
income to a figure too absurd to worry over.
However, the Government had at last signified its intention of testing
his invention--Chaosite--and there was that chance for better things in
prospect. Also, in time, Gerald would probably be able to return
something of the loans made. But these things did not alleviate present
stringent conditions, nor were they likely to for a long while; and
Selwyn, tired and perplexed, mounted the stairs of his lodging-house and
laid his overcoat on the iron bed, and, divesting himself of the
garments of ceremony as a matter of economy, pulled on an old tweed
shooting-jacket and trousers.
Then, lighting his pipe--cigars being now on the expensive and forbidden
list--he drew a chair to his table and sat down, resting his worn face
between both hands. Truly the world was not going very well with him in
these days.
For some time, now, it had been his custom to face his difficulties here
in the silence of his little bedroom, seated alone at his table, pipe
gripped between his firm teeth, his strong hands framing his face. Here
he would sit for hours, the long day ended, staring steadily at the
blank wall, the gas-jet flickering overhead; and here, slowly,
painfully, with doubt and hesitation, out of the moral confusion in his
weary mind he evolved the theory of personal responsibility.
With narrowing eyes, from which slowly doubt faded, he gazed at duty
with all the calm courage of his race, not at first recognising it as
duty in its new and dreadful guise.
But night after night, patiently perplexed, he retraced his errant
pathway through life, back to the source of doubt and pain; and, once
arrived there, he remained, gazing with impartial eyes upon the ruin two
young souls had wrought of their twin lives; and always, always somehow,
confronting him among the débris, rose the spectre of their deathless
responsibility to one another; and the inexorable life-sentence sounded
ceaselessly in his ears: "For better or for worse--for better or for
worse--till death do us part--till death--till death!"
Dreadful his duty--for man already had dared to sunder them, and he had
acquiesced to save her in the eyes of the world! Dreadful,
indeed--because he knew that he had never loved her, never could love
her! Dreadful--doubly dreadful--for he now knew what love might be; and
it was not what he had believed it when he executed the contract which
must bind him while life endured.
Once, and not long since, he thought that, freed from the sad disgrace
of the shadowy past, he had begun life anew. They told him--and he told
himself--that a man had that right; that a man was no man who stood
stunned and hopeless, confronting the future in fetters of conscience.
And by that token he had accepted the argument as truth--because he
desired to believe it--and he had risen erect and shaken himself free of
the past--as he supposed; as though the past, which becomes part of us,
can be shaken from tired shoulders with the first shudder of revolt!
No; he understood now that the past was part of him--as his limbs and
head and body and mind were part of him. It had to be reckoned
with--what he had done to himself, to the young girl united to him in
bonds indissoluble except in death.
That she had strayed--under man-made laws held guiltless--could not
shatter the tie. That he, blinded by hope, had hoped to remake a life
already made, and had dared to masquerade before his own soul as a man
free to come, to go, and free to love, could not alter what had been
done. Back, far back of it all lay the deathless pact--for better or for
worse. And nothing man might wish or say or do could change it. Always,
always he must remain bound by that, no matter what others did or
thought; always, always he was under obligations to the end.
And now, alone, abandoned, helplessly sick, utterly dependent upon the
decency, the charity, the mercy of her legal paramour, the young girl
who had once been his wife had not turned to him in vain.
Before the light of her shaken mind had gone out she had written him,
incoherently, practically _in extremis_; and if he had hitherto doubted
where his duty lay, from that moment he had no longer any doubt. And
very quietly, hopelessly, and irrevocably he had crushed out of his soul
the hope and promise of the new life dawning for him above the dead
ashes of the past.
* * * * *
It was not easy to do; he had not ended it yet. He did not know how.
There were ties to be severed, friendships to be gently broken, old
scenes to be forgotten, memories to kill. There was also love--to be
disposed of. And he did not know how.
First of all, paramount in his hopeless trouble, the desire to save
others from pain persisted.
For that reason he had been careful that Gerald should not know where
and how he was now obliged to live--lest the boy suspect and understand
how much of Selwyn's little fortune it had taken to settle his debts of
"honour" and free him from the sinister pressure of Neergard's
importunities.
For that reason, too, he dreaded to have Austin know, because, if the
truth were exposed, nothing in the world could prevent a violent and
final separation between him and the foolish boy who now, at last, was
beginning to show the first glimmering traces of character and common
sense.
So he let it be understood that his address was his club for the
present; for he also desired no scene with Boots, whom he knew would
attempt to force him to live with him in his cherished and brand-new
house. And even if he cared to accept and permit Boots to place him
under such obligations, it would only hamper him in his duties.
Because now, what remained of his income must be devoted to Alixe.
Even before her case had taken the more hopeless turn, he had understood
that she could not remain at Clifton. Such cases were neither desired
nor treated there; he understood that. And so he had taken, for her, a
pretty little villa at Edgewater, with two trained nurses to care for
her, and a phaeton for her to drive.
And now she was installed there, properly cared for, surrounded by every
comfort, contented--except in the black and violent crises which still
swept her in recurrent storms--indeed, tranquil and happy; for through
the troubled glimmer of departing reason, her eyes were already opening
in the calm, unearthly dawn of second childhood.
Pain, sadness, the desolate awakening to dishonour had been forgotten;
to her, the dead now lived; to her, the living who had been children
with her were children again, and she a child among them. Outside of
that dead garden of the past, peopled by laughing phantoms of her youth,
but one single extraneous memory persisted--the memory of
Selwyn--curiously twisted and readjusted to the comprehension of a
child's mind--vague at times, at times wistfully elusive and
incoherent--but it remained always a memory, and always a happy one.
He was obliged to go to her every three or four days. In the interim she
seemed quite satisfied and happy, busy with the simple and pretty things
she now cared for; but toward the third day of his absence she usually
became restless, asking for him, and why he did not come. And then they
telegraphed him, and he left everything and went, white-faced, stern of
lip, to endure the most dreadful ordeal a man may face--to force the
smile to his lips and gaiety into the shrinking soul of him, and sit
with her in the pretty, sunny room, listening to her prattle, answering
the childish questions, watching her, seated in her rocking-chair,
singing contentedly to herself, and playing with her dolls and
ribbons--dressing them, undressing, mending, arranging--until the heart
within him quivered under the misery of it, and he turned to the
curtained window, hands clinching convulsively, and teeth set to force
back the strangling agony in his throat.
And the dreadful part of it all was that her appearance had remained
unchanged--unless, perhaps, she was prettier, lovelier of face and
figure than ever before; but in her beautiful dark eyes only the direct
intelligence of a child answered his gaze of inquiry; and her voice,
too, had become soft and hesitating, and the infantile falsetto sounded
in it at times, sweet, futile, immature.
* * * * *
Thinking of these things now, he leaned heavily forward, elbows on the
little table. And, suddenly unbidden, before his haunted eyes rose the
white portico of Silverside, and the greensward glimmered, drenched in
sunshine, and a slim figure in white stood there, arms bare, tennis-bat
swinging in one tanned little hand.
Voices were sounding in his ears--Drina's laughter, Lansing's protest;
Billy shouting to his eager pack; his sister's calm tones, admonishing
the young--and through it all, _her_ voice, clear, hauntingly sweet,
pronouncing his name.
And he set his lean jaws tight and took a new grip on his pipe-stem, and
stared, with pain-dulled eyes, at the white wall opposite.
But on the blank expanse the faintest tinge of colour appeared, growing
clearer, taking shape as he stared; and slowly, slowly, under the soft
splendour of her hair, two clear eyes of darkest blue opened under the
languid lids and looked at him, and looked and looked until he closed
his own, unable to endure the agony.
But even through his sealed lids he saw her; and her clear gaze pierced
him, blinded as he was, leaning there, both hands pressed across his
eyes.
Sooner or later--sooner or later he must write to her and tell what must
be told. How to do it, when to do it, he did not know. What to say he
did not know; but that there was something due her from him--something
to say, something to confess--to ask her pardon for--he understood.
Happily for her--happily for him, alas!--love, in its full miracle, had
remained beyond her comprehension. That she cared for him with all her
young heart he knew; that she had not come to love him he knew, too. So
that crowning misery of happiness was spared him.
Yet he knew, too, that there had been a chance for him; that her
awakening had not been wholly impossible. Loyal in his soul to the dread
duty before him, he must abandon hope; loyal in his heart to her, he
must abandon her, lest, by chance, in the calm, still happiness of their
intimacy the divine moment, unheralded, flash out through the veil,
dazzling, blinding them with the splendour of its truth and beauty.
And now, leaning there, his face buried in his hands, hours that he
spent with her came crowding back upon him, and in his ears her voice
echoed and echoed, and his hands trembled with the scented memory of her
touch, and his soul quivered and cried out for her.
Storm after storm swept him; and in the tempest he abandoned reason,
blinded, stunned, crouching there with head lowered and his clenched
hands across his face.
But storms, given right of way, pass on and over, and tempests sweep
hearts cleaner; and after a long while he lifted his bowed head and sat
up, squaring his shoulders.
Presently he picked up his pipe again, held it a moment, then laid it
aside. Then he leaned forward, breathing deeply but quietly, and picked
up a pen and a sheet of paper. For the time had come for his letter to
her, and he was ready.
The letter he wrote was one of those gay, cheerful, inconsequential
letters which, from the very beginning of their occasional
correspondence, had always been to her most welcome and delightful.
Ignoring that maturity in her with which he had lately dared to reckon,
he reverted to the tone which he had taken and maintained with her
before the sweetness and seriousness of their relations had deepened to
an intimacy which had committed him to an avowal.
News of all sorts humorously retailed--an amusing sketch of his recent
journey to Washington and its doubtful results--matters that they both
were interested in, details known only to them, a little harmless
gossip--these things formed the body of his letter. There was never a
hint of sorrow or discouragement--nothing to intimate that life had so
utterly and absolutely changed for him--only a jolly, friendly
badinage--an easy, light-hearted narrative, ending in messages to all
and a frank regret that the pursuit of business and happiness appeared
incompatible at the present moment.
His address, he wrote, was his club; he sent her, he said, under
separate cover, a rather interesting pamphlet--a monograph on the
symbolism displayed by the designs in Samarcand rugs and textiles of
the Ming dynasty. And he ended, closing with a gentle jest concerning
blue-stockings and rebellious locks of ruddy hair.
And signed his name.
* * * * *
Nina and Eileen, in travelling gowns and veils, stood on the porch at
Silverside, waiting for the depot wagon, when Selwyn's letter was handed
to Eileen.
The girl flushed up, then, avoiding Nina's eyes, turned and entered the
house. Once out of sight, she swiftly mounted to her own room and
dropped, breathless, on the bed, tearing the envelope from end to end.
And from end to end, and back again and over again, she read the
letter--at first in expectancy, lips parted, colour brilliant, then with
the smile still curving her cheeks--but less genuine now--almost
mechanical--until the smile stamped on her stiffening lips faded, and
the soft contours relaxed, and she lifted her eyes, staring into space
with a wistful, questioning lift of the pure brows.
What more had she expected? What more had she desired? Nothing, surely,
of that emotion which she declined to recognise; surely not that
sentiment of which she had admitted her ignorance to him. Again her eyes
sought the pages, following the inked writing from end to end. What was
she seeking there that he had left unwritten? What was she searching
for, of which there was not one hint in all these pages?
And now Nina was calling her from the hall below; and she answered gaily
and, hiding the letter in her long glove, came down the stairs.
"I'll tell you all about the letter in the train," she said; "he is
perfectly well, and evidently quite happy; and Nina--"
"What, dear?"
"I want to send him a telegram. May I?"
"A dozen, if you wish," said Mrs. Gerard, "only, if you don't climb into
that vehicle, we'll miss the train."
So on the way to Wyossette station Eileen sat very still, gloved hands
folded in her lap, composing her telegram to Selwyn. And, once in the
station, having it by heart already, she wrote it rapidly:
"Nina and I are on our way to the Berkshires for a week.
House-party at the Craigs'. We stay overnight in town. E.E."
But the telegram went to his club, and waited for him there; and
meanwhile another telegram arrived at his lodgings, signed by a trained
nurse; and while Miss Erroll, in the big, dismantled house, lay in a
holland-covered armchair, waiting for him, while Nina and Austin,
reading their evening papers, exchanged significant glances from time to
time, the man she awaited sat in the living-room in a little villa at
Edgewater. And a slim young nurse stood beside him, cool and composed in
her immaculate uniform, watching the play of light and shadow on a woman
who lay asleep on the couch, fresh, young face flushed and upturned, a
child's doll cradled between arm and breast.
* * * * *
"How long has she been asleep?" asked Selwyn under his breath.
"An hour. She fretted a good deal because you had not come. This
afternoon she said she wished to drive, and I had the phaeton brought
around; but when she saw it she changed her mind. I was rather afraid of
an outburst--they come sometimes from less cause than that--so I did not
urge her to go out. She played on the piano for a long while, and sang
some songs--those curious native songs she learned in Manila. It seemed
to soothe her; she played with her little trifles quite contentedly for
a time, but soon began fretting again, and asking why you had not come.
She had a bad hour later--she is quite exhausted now. Could you stay
to-night, Captain Selwyn?"
"Y-es, if you think it better. . . . Wait a moment; I think she has
awakened."
Alixe had turned her head, her lovely eyes wide open.
"Phil!" she cried, "is it you?"
He went forward and took the uplifted hands, smiling down at her.
"Such a horrid dream!" she said pettishly, "about a soft, plump man with
ever so many rings on his hands. . . . Oh, I am glad you came. . . .
Look at this child of mine!" cuddling the staring wax doll closer;
"she's not undressed yet, and it's long, long after bedtime. Hand me her
night-clothes, Phil."
The slim young nurse bent and disentangled a bit of lace and cambric
from a heap on the floor, offering it to Selwyn. He laid it in the hand
Alixe held out, and she began to undress the doll in her arms, prattling
softly all the while:
"Late--oh, so very, very late! I must be more careful of her, Phil;
because, if you and I grow up, some day we may marry, and we ought to
know all about children. It would be great fun, wouldn't it?"
He nodded, forcing a smile.
"Don't you think so?" she persisted.
"Yes--yes, indeed," he said gently.
She laughed, contented with his answer, and laid her lips against the
painted face of the doll.
"When we grow up, years from now--then we'll understand, won't we, Phil?
. . . I am tired with playing. . . . And Phil--let me whisper something.
Is that person gone?"
He turned and signed to the nurse, who quietly withdrew.
"Is she gone?" repeated Alixe.
"Yes."
"Then listen, Phil. Do you know what she and the other one are about all
day? _I_ know; I pretend not to, but I know. They are watching me every
moment--always watching me, because they want to make you believe that I
am forgetting you. But I am not. That is why I made them send for you so
I could tell you myself that I could never, never forget you. . . . I
think of you always while I am playing--always--always I am thinking of
you. You will believe it, won't you?"
"Yes," he said.
Contented, she turned to her doll again, undressing it deftly, tenderly.
"At moments," she said, "I have an odd idea that it is real. I am not
quite sure even now. Do you believe it is alive, Phil? Perhaps, at
night, when I am asleep, it becomes alive. . . . This morning I awoke,
laughing, laughing in delight--thinking I heard you laughing, too--as
once--in the dusk where there were many roses and many stars--big stars,
and very, very bright--I saw you--saw you--and the roses--"
She paused with a pained, puzzled look of appeal.
"Where was it, Phil?"
"In Manila town."
"Yes; and there were roses. But I was never there."
"You came out on the veranda and pelted me with roses. There were others
there--officers and their wives. Everybody was laughing."
"Yes--but I was not there, Phil. . . . Who--who was the tall, thin
bugler who sounded taps?"
"Corrigan."
"And--the little, girl-shaped, brown men?"
"My constabulary."
"I can't recollect," she said listlessly, laying the doll against her
breast. "I think, Phil, that you had better be a little quiet now--she
may wish to sleep. And I am sleepy, too," lifting her slender hand as a
sign for him to take his leave.
As he went out the nurse said: "If you wish to return to town, you may,
I think. She will forget about you for two or three days, as usual.
Shall I telegraph if she becomes restless?"
"Yes. What does the doctor say to-day?"
The slim nurse looked at him under level brows.
"There is no change," she said.
"No hope." It was not even a question.
"No hope, Captain Selwyn."
He stood silent, tapping his leg with the stiff brim of his hat; then,
wearily: "Is there anything more I can do for her?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Thank you."
He turned away, bidding her good-night in a low voice.
* * * * *
He arrived in town about midnight, but did not go to any of his clubs.
At one of them a telegram was awaiting him; and in a dismantled and
summer-shrouded house a young girl was still expecting him, lying with
closed eyes in a big holland-covered arm-chair, listening to the rare
footfalls in the street outside.
But of these things he knew nothing; and he went wearily to his lodgings
and climbed the musty stairs, and sat down in his old attitude before
the table and the blank wall behind it, waiting for the magic frescoes
to appear in all the vague loveliness of their hues and dyes, painting
for him upon his chamber-walls the tinted paradise now lost to him for
ever.